Teardrops
by alexix
Summary: DMHG with early RWHG. Hermione fights against romantic instincts, Ron stands by protectively, and Harry and Ginny play the resident shrinks. It's all about the shape of Draco Malfoy's heart.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 

The stone sparkled under fluorescent bulbs, glowing despite the unnatural spotlight.  A man in his mid-20's smiled and pointed, "This one, Ma'am."

"A teardrop, Ron?"

Ronald Weasley and his soon to be brother-in-law Harry Potter stood in front of a glass counter filled with diamond rings.  It was a contrasting scene, a firebrand fidgeting with his wallet while his best friend leaned back nonchalantly.

"It seems fitting..." Ron trailed off, "Did you know she has this—birthmark, I guess—in the shape of a teardrop between her breasts?"

"No, but only you would know something like that, wouldn't you?" Harry winked and laughed at his friend's creeping blush.

The clerk returned with a small, wrapped box.  As Ron paid, she remarked with a smile, "She must be quite the girl."

Both boys grinned.

"Yes.  Hermione Granger _is_ quite the girl."

:

"Can I help you, Miss?"

"Green tea, please."

It was four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and the quaint café on 5th Avenue held few customers. It was a perfect, _quiet _repose for Hermione Granger, executive director of **Tomorrow, Tomorrow**, the reigning technology tycoon of the muggle world.  Hermione took an early leave from the bustling office, complaining that a noisy environment brew unproductivity, and brought her work to the café across the street.  Despite being seated at a table for four, she had no other company besides papers to be perused, files to be organized, and envelopes to be opened.  It was a busy life she led, and she would have it no other way.

Removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes, she thanked the waitress for the tea and stared at the opened file grasped in her hands.

_Sussex Press, September 15_

_Pearl Abbott of Cambridge University, England has claimed that the future will not be defined by new sources of energy or celestial places of living, but instead, by what we expect the least: nanotechnology._

_"It's not about looking abroad anymore; it's not about living large.  We're looking at what can't be seen—the miniscule, the microscopic.  The point is that we are made up of Mother Nature's own nanotechnology, cells, and if we can harvest that same machinery, then we wouldn't need to develop cloning techniques!  We'd just make things from scratch ourselves!"_

_The Boston Globe, September 22_

_The most feared killers of mankind, scientists theorize, are the least visible: viruses.  These microscopic murderers aren't animals that we can simply kill or cage.  They are as dangerous as humans, having the assets any power-hungry dictator would want:  regeneration, the ability to shape shift, highly contagious attributes, and the characteristic of never getting captured._

_Tami Chiang of Harvard University has compiled a list of the most potent viruses of today, warning the populace of their incurable properties:_

_..._

Hermione sighed.  While the listed viruses were fatal to humans, they were nothing a proper spell or potion couldn't cure.  Frustration was settling upon her, and as she looked around at her muggle surroundings, she had to force herself to remember why exactly she turned down a job offer at the Ministry.  

'Oh, yeah.  Because nine years of this War has brought nothing but casualties and stalemates,' she noted wryly.

The Ministry's forces were dwindling, and it apparently had no more plan Bs to tip the scales.  Knowing the Light side's hopelessness, she turned to the power of muggles for aid.  Even though they were the cause of this war and the ultimate victims, Hermione saw them as the untapped resource and most probably, the deciding factor between victor and loser.  So she enrolled in a muggle university immediately after graduation and steadily worked her way into success, heading the strongest branch of muggles' greatest forte: science and technology.  For days and days, she collected articles and newspaper clippings, recorded television broadcasts and radio interviews, and dug up any useful information that could help win the war.  In her idealized theory, Hermione hoped that some virus or machine could cripple the Dark side like mumps had traumatized the Dark Lord.

And this nanotechnology seemed like something worth looking into.

"Beep beep!"

Her cell phone had just vibrated, and glancing at its clock, Hermione realized that her two hours of pondering brought her to a late date with the crew.  Hastily, she cleaned up her table, gulped down her tea, dropped a tip, and rushed out of there with a single thought in mind.

'Ginny's going to kill me!'

:

"Hermione Eleanor Granger!  I'm going to kill you!"

Sighing at an obviously impatient Virginia Weasley, Hermione opened her mouth in defense—

"I know, I know!  You were caught up with work!  Yes, I've heard it all."

Closing her mouth, she frowned, but realized that if Ginny knew what her excuses were going to be anyway, then she knew what her lectures were going to be too.

"Heard it all, eh?  Then I've heard all the 'You work too much, Mione.' lectures as well," she countered with a smirk.  "Just tell me, when are the guys going to be here?"

"Half an hour.  I told them we're going to need more time, so they should run by later."

"I'm sure it's not hard for them to be running late," Hermione said with a grin.

Laughing, her best friend grinned back and said, "Come on, let's go find something for you to wear."

An hour and three outfits later, Hermione and Ginny walked into the living room where their respective boyfriends were pacing.

"Ginny!  You look great!" Harry exclaimed.  She was sporting a V-neck dress patterned with a large embroidered rose.

"You look really nice too, Mione," Ron admired.  A dark blue dress that flared slightly at the hem hung on her frame.

Ginny grinned while Hermione blushed, and both were escorted outside on their gentlemen's arms.

"Where are we going?" Hermione questioned as she noticed Ginny and Harry veering away.

"Um...well..." Ron started out.

"We decided that as much as double dates are fun, I think we need some alone time," Harry interrupted.

"Alone time?" Ginny raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Ginny!"

"Haha!  Don't worry, Ron.  Your sister is safe with me."

"Safe with you?  What about _your_ safety with _her_?"

Laughing, Hermione squeezed her boyfriend's arm and attempted to calm him, "Ron, relax.  I'm sure they will be fine, just as _we _will be fine."  She smiled to support him, and he looked at her with an equally appreciative gaze.

"Ok!" Ginny interrupted. "Then I guess I'll see you later, Mione!"

The quartet waved their goodbyes, and as one Gryffindor couple moved towards the car, Hermione and Ron continued on the sidewalk.  He explained that since he and Harry already had this planned, they were going to continue with the dinner reservations while Harry and Gin found their own interlude.

:

It was a beautiful date at a beautiful restaurant on a beautiful night.  Ronald Weasley couldn't believe his luck at how perfect the evening was progressing, and he prayed to Merlin that it would end just as perfectly.

Merlin wasn't listening that night.

The couple was settled at a cleared table, and all that stood between them were two glasses of champagne and a candle.  Hermione was smiling wistfully while swirling her drink, causing Ron to breathe deeply and exhale loudly at the sight of her perfection.  Somehow, he doubted that the alcohol was what caused her to look so enchanting behind a halo of light and against a sky of stars.

'Deep breaths, Ron.  Deep breaths...'

"Hermione?"

She looked up with that same comforting smile, brown eyes attentive.

Ron slid to one knee.

Her smile fell to parted lips, and her eyes widened with greater attention.

A black velvet box, unmistakably square, was revealed in his hands, and his fingers slowly snapped it open.

"Hermione Granger..."

To live, a girl needs her heart to be beating and her lungs to be breathing, but there are always moments like this when air falls second to a person's heart.

"...will you marry me?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Is that a teardrop?"

Hermione wanted to smack herself for such indolence.  That could have been the most insensitive and brainless comment of her entire life!  And clearly, it was the last thing Ron was hoping to hear.

"Um...er...yeah.  I thought it was...uh...clever because you have a—"

"Teardrop-shaped mark on my chest..." she trailed off, gazing into the depths of the diamond and wondering why it was suddenly multiplying into blurriness.

"Aw, man...Mione, don't cry!  Please don't cry..."

She shook her head at Ron's consoling attempts and blinking, tried to focus back onto her boyfriend of six months and best friend of fifteen years.  He had this concerned look on his face, brows slightly arched together with blue eyes questioning, and his lips were slightly parted as if silent words of hope were floating out of their own accord.

Teardrops.  Teardrops were rolling down her cheeks as Hermione gazed longer and longer at the teardrop nestled in his hand.  She felt like she was driving in the rain with broken wipers: signs staggering about on waves, and colors muting into grayish blends.  Slowly, that orange hair began to leak bright red streams, and his brilliant blue eyes began to dull into wet grays.

"Oh, Ron..."

"Hermione?"

She slowly got up and grasped his wrist, pulling him up.  A puzzled look settled across his face, and somehow, he knew his prayer went unanswered.

"Ron...I-I love you..."

Oh, Merlin definitely wasn't listening tonight.

"...but I can't.  I'm sorry."

The love of his life finished in a whisper, and a gentle touch, cruelly reminiscent of _friendship_, graced his arm and left.  It took him moments to realize that she was gone, to realize that the beautiful brown eyes he was gazing so lovingly into just minutes before...were gone.  Instead, they were replaced by white dots against a black sky, a face that seemed to blur more and more into an indiscernible cloud of gray.

:

Hermione shivered against the autumn breeze, and with one arm wrapped around her shoulders, she fumbled with the keys to her apartment.  The minute they fell to a clash on the steps, the door swung open, revealing Ginny in a bathrobe.

"Mione!"

She collapsed into her best friend's arms, sobbing, and not quite realizing that just behind her stood a bewildered Harry.  Slowly, without disturbing her friend's trauma, Ginny turned her head and signaled for him to leave quietly, a message that yelled all in one motion, 'Find Ron.'  He slipped out with the stealth of an invisibility cloak, and Ginny silently closed the door.

"Mione...Mione, dear...What happened?  Merlin, what happened?"

The weeping girl continued to tremble in her friends arms until Ginny walked them both to her bed.  She hoped that the reason behind this outbreak wasn't what she was thinking, even while her instincts told her that it was exactly what she thought.

"Hermione.  Please, talk to me.  What happened?  Did Ron—"

At the mention of his name, the girl in question bawled even more.  Ginny suddenly knew that her instinct was right.  If there was anything that could bring this lioness to tears, it was guilt.

"Ron..." Hermione began, "H-he...p-proposed..."

"And you said no."  It was blunt, but it was the truth.  It also caused Hermione a new round of tears.  "You love him, and you hate to hurt him, but to say yes is to hurt him further.  And he deserves more than that," Ginny continued with the Weasley maternal wisdom, and she vaguely felt Hermione nod against her.

Ginny knew tomorrow was Saturday, technically a weekend free of work, but she also knew that work was what kept Hermione sane.  And if Hermione missed a whole day to work, her guilt trip would travel farther than China.  Interrogations and psychiatric sessions tonight would help neither party, and the best remedy right then seemed to be sleep. 

"Shh...it's okay, Mione.  It's okay."  It wasn't okay, really.  This is her brother who had just been rejected.  But, then again, this is her best friend.  Ginny sighed.  She laid her friend down, covered her with blankets, and quietly accioed a vial of sleeping draught.  Stroking her friend's hair, she bid her to drink.  Hermione settled down eventually, even as tears still spilled down her cheeks, and ultimately, Ginny couldn't help but blink tears back herself.  After all, two broken friends were enough to bring anyone to tears.

:

Harry wasn't quite sure where to turn first.  Logically, Ron would still be in shock at the restaurant, or if he had enough composure, he would return to his apartment.

'Logic,' he snorted, 'Love doesn't come with logic.'

Sighing, he realized that Ron would probably go to the one place Harry wished he wouldn't.  The Briar Cliffs.

"I don't understand, Harry.  Perfect dates don't end in disaster.  Perfect dates end with happy couples."

"..."

"It's just...I don't know.  I don't know what else to do.  I don't know what I did wrong, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know what she's thinking—hell!  I don't even know what _I'm _thinking!"

Harry had found his best friend sitting behind the rail—thankfully not in front of it—that prevented people from falling from Briar Cliffs, and he was only gazing morosely at the waters below.  It was a night of mockery, apparently, because just as the stars brightly shone in the clear sky, the river below coursed calmly beneath the cliffs as if it never knew the word 'suicide'.

"Ron...I wish I knew what to say.  I wish I knew what was going on too.  I wish...I wished for a happy ending too..."

Together they sat in silence.  Nothing was happening that night, no owls or rodents, no breezes or clouds—nothing.  It may have been abnormally normal, but somehow, they knew that tonight's nothingness was a sign that nothing would be happening to them.

Nothing would change.  Even the worst of breakups couldn't break the Golden Trio, and no matter how emotionally unavailable their Gryffindor girl would become, they would always be there for her.  Rationale ran through their minds, asking why and how, but emotions clouded the possibility of detached judgment; in reality, they didn't want to judge her.  In truth, they knew it was impossible to be angry at her because no matter how much she would hurt them, they would always forgive her.

"I still love her."

"I know, Ron.  I know."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  


_His finger glowed like windswept embers, and pressing it to the center of his chest, he etched into his perfectly pallid skin a fresh wound. He then turned to her and pressed the same smoldering digit into her own chest. Their eyes were locked in this exchange of hearts, and unbidden teardrops slid down to seal the silent promise._

  
Hermione Granger woke with a start. Blinking, she realized that she wasn't really crying and that there really was no need to blink back tears; but in truth, she had been crying, just last night in fact, and in reality, years before as well. A hand unsteadily grasped her dress, pressing against the center of her chest, and her fingers absentmindedly traced the scar beneath her clothes. Her mind raced back to the dream, and with a sudden transformation from startled to sad, Hermione realized that the dream was not a dream but instead, a memory. This time, she did blink, not to rid of tears but to wipe away the image of mercurial eyes and platinum hair. Emotions were running rampart this morning because as soon as she turned from startled to sad and from sad to nostalgic, Hermione ran into guilt. The events of last night crashed into her memory, and she would have collapsed back into a bed of tears if not for a certain savior.  
  
"Hermione?" Ginny called out hesitantly from behind the door.  
  
"Ginny?"  
  
Sliding into the room, Ginny tried not to grimace at her best friend's disheveled appearance. Smudged eyeliner accompanied running mascara, and Hermione's pale skin was seemed to look thinner and thinner.  
  
"Here," she said, passing a cup to her. "It's a homemade potion my mother used to make for me whenever I had a crisis—basically some pepper-up mixed with other things." She waved absently, "But I kept the base as your green tea! Mum would usually add it to hot cocoa for me..."  
  
She was trying so hard. "Thank you," Hermione said. "And thank you for...for..." Despite her faltering, she knew what she was thankful for: her friendship, her support, her presence with her right now—  
  
"For not being angry with you?" Ginny smiled warmly. "Don't worry, Mione. It would take more than just a dumped brother to separate us."  
  
A dumped brother. It was a crude phrase that resounded in both of their minds, and even though the colloquialism was an attempt to lighten the situation, both girls knew that reality wasn't meant to be taken lightly. 'But he's _my_ brother,' Ginny conceded. Was there a line of responsibility drawn between family and friends? Does blood ultimately decide which side should be taken? Ginny wasn't sure. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be sure. While family ties were strong because of blood, friendships were strong because of choice; blood bonded her to protect Ron, but Ginny chose to protect Hermione.  
  
"Mione…I know how serious this is. I love you both, and I'd do anything I can to keep both of you from getting hurt."  
  
"Oh, Ginny...Thank you." A small smile crept onto Hermione's lips, telling Ginny that at she was doing at least something right. Something in the back of her mind tingled, however, suggesting that there was still a missing piece to this catastrophe. Ginny thought back to her brother's conversations with Harry, all the assurances they gave each other, the time when Ron asked her for insight. She remembered Hermione hanging onto him, remembered the way an impromptu promise ring had settled so easily on her finger. It didn't make sense. There was nothing but good memories in their history, and yet, somehow, it still all came to this. What was she missing?  
  
As she watched her friend sip tea, Ginny wondered if she should ask or if she should wait until Hermione said something.  
  
"And Ginny?" her friend began, "Thank you for not asking why."  
  
Well that answered her question. Will she ever understand why Hermione said no?  
  
"I mean, you certainly deserve an explanation. All of you do. I—I'm just not up to it now, I guess."  
  
Nodding, Ginny tried to push back her curiosity and frustration and assured her, "I understand, Mione. We'll wait for you." She gave a smile that she hoped looked more sincere than irked. She could wait, but she also knew that the only way to mend things was to start with problem. And right now, the problem was the only unknown. 

-=- 

"Harry. Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."  
  
"..."  
  
"Harry. Please tell me I am not gracing the cover of The Daily Prophet."  
  
"..."  
  
"Harry. Please tell me this article isn't about Hermione rejecting me."  
  
"..."  
  
"Harry! Say something, you bloody mute!"  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"Oh, Merlin. My Auror career! My Quidditch career!"  
  
"Ron, you don't have a—"   
  
"My _right-after-this-damn-war-ends_ Quidditch career, then! Bloody damn, Harry! How the hell did people—"  
  
"I'm sorry, Ron! People talk! Famous people have public lives! God knows how much I loathe it too..."  
  
Ron looked at his best friend with newfound sympathy. They knew all too well how much trash was being thrown at the Boy-Who-Lived-But-Is-Still-Struggling-With-A-Nine-Year-War.  
  
They sighed. "Well, I guess I should get it over with," Ron grimaced. "There are probably millions of cameras already flashing outside that door." "Gee, Ron. Even without the Quidditch fan club, I think you've got the center-stage act down already," Harry laughed, trying to find light in the situation. His face immediately became serious, though, as he said, "I think it's time we visit Mione."  
  
Ron closed his eyes and shook his head, not in refusal, but in hopes of a clarity. Last night, the two boys had talked for hours, reminiscing about the past, attempting to joke around, and trying to understand the great girl enigma. They knew that it wasn't about getting her back as much as it was about getting everything back. In the end, Ron chose friendship over ex-relationship, and Harry wanted to do everything he could to make things right again.  
  
He sighed and nodded, Gryffindor courage manifesting into two words.  
  
"Let's go."  


-=- 

_Friday evening was a showstopper for diners at the world renown restaurant La Terazza. Auror Ronald Weasley was seen proposing to muggle entrepreneur Hermione Granger...  
...  
The evening ended, however, with a remaining bachelor and an untouched diamond. Ms. Granger was reported to have returned to her flat in tears._** (continue on E2)**  


  


A wave of a wand had the offending newspaper burned, and as the figure turned to face the city beneath his tower, his fingers tapped a quiet heartbeat in the center of his chest. 


End file.
